Trade and professional associations can and commonly do serve many legitimate purposes, including promoting common industry interests to the public, lobbying and advocacy, research, member education and the promotion and improvement of product standards. However, because trade and professional association activities commonly involve the interaction of direct competitors, they can also in some cases raise competition law concerns under the federal Competition Act.
Competition, Advertising & Compliance Law
Services For Associations
We offer Canadian competition law, advertising law, CASL (Canadian anti-spam law) and compliance services for trade and professional associations and other not-for-profit organizations including in relation to board and association meetings, association rules and by-laws, codes of ethics and conduct, standard setting exercises, member surveys and benchmarking, government lobbying and advocacy, membership criteria and discipline, joint purchasing, member information exchanges (e.g., at meetings or via social media platforms) and dealing with marketplace and competitor issues.
Representative Work
Some representative examples of our trade and professional association law related work includes competition law compliance programs and policies for many associations, compliance talks and seminars for association members and boards, competition compliance audits, opinions and legal advice, vetting and attending trade association meetings and board meetings, filing and defending against Competition Bureau complaints and investigations, drafting conduct of meeting, search and seizure and information exchange guidelines, guidelines for member surveys and benchmarking, a national competition law compliance course for organized real estate (Competition Law and REALTORS: What You Say and Do Matters), subject matter expert for a national online competition law compliance course for Canadian REALTORS, co-author of The Competition Law Guide for Trade Associations in Canada (Carswell book) and subject matter expert and author for the advertising law section of the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College’s course Ethics in Clinical Practice and Advertising. Steve Szentesi also served for two years as in-house competition law counsel for The Canadian Real Estate Association in Ottawa, one of Canada’s largest trade associations.
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SERVICES AND CONTACT
We are a Toronto based competition and advertising law firm offering business and individual clients efficient and strategic advice in relation to competition/antitrust, advertising, Internet and new media law and contest law. We also offer competition and regulatory law compliance, education and policy services to companies, trade and professional associations and government agencies.
Our experience includes advising clients in Toronto, across Canada and the United States on the application of Canadian competition and regulatory laws and we have worked on hundreds of domestic and cross-border competition, advertising and marketing, promotional contest (sweepstakes), conspiracy (cartel), abuse of dominance, compliance, refusal to deal and pricing and distribution matters. For more information about our competition and advertising law services see: competition law services.
To contact us about a potential legal matter, see: contact
For more information about our firm, visit our website: Competitionlawyer.ca
Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada
Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)
